Triage
by AddisonRules
Summary: A one-shot where Coulson and May take a moment to patch up their bumps and bruises from the finale. Spoilers obviously for everything up to and including 1x22.


Don't own anything. Just borrowing these awesome AoS peeps for some fun.

The mess in the Cybertek lab is cleared and Ward is in custody and Fury is on the Bus out of sight. Coulson knows Skye had to check on Mike, knows Tripp is more than capable of making sure things are secured and ready for them to leave. So before she can head off to try to tend to her injuries alone, he eases his hand around May's arm and leans in close, voice lowered.

"I think we've both had enough fighting for one day, so just follow me to the med bay and make this easy."

She gives him serious side-eye, but with a slight grin. Her silence and continued movement is agreement enough and he'll take it.

Things are in disarray to say the least, but Coulson finds all the basics and gathers them together as May peels off her leather jacket and tosses it down on the table beside her. He tries hard not to react when her shirt follows and the huge dark blotches already rising on her skin hit him as surely as if he'd been punched himself. Her left side is completely discolored, the right only slightly less, and there's a faint imprint of a hand along her throat. If Grant Ward weren't already in military custody, Coulson's pretty sure his fist would be crushing bones in the younger man's face.

She'll never tell him how close it was, and he couldn't have done anything different than suggest she be the one to take on Ward. Yes, she was in the post-whatever of holding the Bezerker staff, and he knew possibly not at full strength, but she was the only one capable of a hand-to-hand confrontation with the traitorous specialist, and Melinda would never have agreed to anyone else stepping into that role.

Still, he can see that for all the risks they took today, the one he'd taken with her is the one he won't be able to forget. Ward had meant to kill her; the bruises, cuts, and scratches on her body are proof of that.

The way she keeps looking down is also evidentiary; not about the fight but about how furious she still is. So Coulson does what he knows to do when she's like this. He tends to her physical wounds and waits for her to let him see the rest.

He wishes it were as easy as the others will make it. That Melinda's simply pissed a traitor crawled into her bed, that he used her. But Coulson has known her too long. She'd already be over and done with that if it were the only issue.

Ward getting past her radar as a mission evaluator... that is another thing entirely.

"You really nailed him to the floor?" he asks, knowing a gentle nudge will go unchallenged.

"I took advantage of my surroundings."

"He looks like two Centipede soldiers played ping pong with his head."

Melinda smirks a little at that, but it disappears in a hiss of pain when Coulson's hands probe around her ribs.

"They're not broken," she offers, self-diagnosing, and Coulson nods. Still, the bruising will be easier to take thanks to the healing cream he spreads over the injured areas. He tries not to picture Ward's boots making contact with her body while he does it.

"Fury got to Fitz and Simmons. She's okay."

May nods at the information even as he moves a piece of aloe treated gauze toward her face to try and soothe the scratches on her skin. She doesn't ask for more info about Fitz because she knows he'd have given it if he had it. They're in wait and see, and all there is now is to hope.

"You should be proud of Skye," she says after a long beat of silence. "She did well today. Didn't even flinch."

That does make him smile, but mostly because he knows something fundamental has changed between Skye and May, and Coulson knows it'll be good for both of them. Some part of him suspects Melinda's resistance has always been fueled more by fear of caring too much than by any real disapproval of the younger woman. But now she's too far gone, too deeply embedded in their team, their family, to hold the line anymore. And that's why the chapter on Ward is far from closed. He hurt their family, and no one will carry the weight of that the way Melinda will. It's just who she is.

"I wanted him dead. I still do."

He stops his ministrations and steps back and finally her eyes meet his.

"We trusted him with their lives, Phil, and he would've killed them all."

"I know. And they'll carry scars from that. There's nothing we can do to change it. But they know we won't ever stop fighting for them. We can give them that."

She exhales a long, slow breath and then nods. Their gaze breaks when she reaches for her t-shirt and pulls it back on before standing and patting the table. Coulson knows better than to argue, so he hops up and waits as Melinda starts doctoring the cut on his forehead. But he stops her, his hands taking hers and holding them still. Phil holds his tongue until she looks up at him, the dark eyes waiting him out.

He has so many things he wants to say that aren't about Ward or the team or the huge unknown that's looming in front of them, but Coulson isn't sure he has a right to say any of them. She's forgiven him so much these last few days and fought by his side without question. It should be enough. It feels selfish to ask for more than that. But then he does. Because Coulson can own the fact that when it comes to Melinda May, he is selfish. He always will be.

"Whatever happens next, just promise me you're with me. Because the one thing I've learned in all this, Melinda, is I don't want to do it without you. Not ever again."

Another pause, another long, slow exhalation, and then her hands are moving, going back to work to bandage his war wound.

"I'm with you, Phil."

It's a band-aid on the larger issues at play, the smallest component of a much bigger conversation that still needs to be had. Because Coulson knows things are changing between them, have been changing since May stepped foot on the plane, and it's not an evolution he wants to stop. The idea of where it might be headed is scary and intoxicating and he can tell by the way she hasn't run from it that she wants it, too.

But like the salve on Melinda's bruises, the aloe on her scratches, and the butterfly bandage on Coulson's cut, on a day when they almost lost everything, the small patch is enough for them to move forward.

For now, it's enough.


End file.
